City of Gold


When I heard about this documentary being made years ago, I have to admit that I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it. Because of his larger than life persona around certain circles in Los Angeles, I concerned that the film would be heavy on idolatry. Fortunately, after viewing it at the LA premiere last night (thanks for the invite, JG!), my concerns were proven wrong. Instead of a documentary about a man, it’s a touching documentary about a man’s love of Los Angeles.

Gold mentions how people who live in LA have to suffer through being explained what LA is by visitors who stay a few days and who presume to know the city. In this film, you feel the opposite. You can tell it’s made by Angelenos who have lived through the good and bad of LA.

Years ago, I was faced with the choice of leaving Los Angeles, where I grew up. Part of me was sick of traffic and the fact that everyone was always late to everything. Watching City of Gold made me so happy that I stayed.

Indie Game The Movie

Despite all the drama about the indie “rock star” developers, Indie Game The Movie is still an enjoyable movie.  It made me nostalgic about those early days of LAN parties, nerdy guys in gamer shirts, and the camaraderie of old CoJ (RIP CoJ forum TFC servers!).

What I especially liked about the movie (other than the great soundtrack by Jim Guthrie) is that it’s available for download through all sorts of means and is even DRM free.  Now there’s some people who finally get it.

The movie did inspire me to dig out Super Meat Boy on my computer and try to finish it.

Video: A Bite of China

If you haven’t been keeping up with the flogosphere (get it? it’s the food blogosphere!) then you may not have heard of this great mini-series from CCTV called A Bite of China.  The good news is the production value is high and the subject matter is really good. The bad news is that it’s only in mandarin and the subtitles are no-where to be found.  But I have faith that official or unofficial subtitles will turn up soon.

Each 50 minute episode revolves around a theme.  The first episode, Gift of the Nature, focusses on produce that takes work to eat such as the long treks in the forest to dig out tender bamboo shoots, walking many kilometers just to find one matsutake, wading and digging through sludge to get an arm of lotus root, etc.  It’s great that the show focuses on the more traditional way of doing things and that it jumps to locations all over China.

Oh and the food porn shots. WOW.

Full episode list: